About Us
History of the Peach Festival - Ruston, LA
Few peaches were grown for commercial purposes in Lincoln Parish until the 1940s. Before then, most peach farming was done on a small-scale family basis. In the late 1930s, several commercial peach orchards were located in Lincoln Parish. 
In 1947, the area peach growers organized the Louisiana Fruit Growers Association. And in 1951, they voted to promote their industry by spreading word throughout Louisiana and surrounding states of the excellent taste of Lincoln Parish peaches.
Plans to hold an annual Louisiana Peach Festival were placed on the drawing board. For months preceding June 1951, Ruston citizens busied themselves preparing for the event. J.E Mitcham, president of the Louisiana Fruit Growers Association, and Walter Smith, chairman of the first Louisiana Peach Festival, spent many hours planning the celebration. Area merchants filled the local newspaper with advertisements offering special sales and savings to honor the first Peach Festival. The Association, with the cooperation of the city of Ruston, the Chamber of Commerce, civic clubs, garden clubs, merchants, and many other individuals, decorated the main streets, public buildings, banks and stores with banners and placards headlining the popular Dixie Gem peach.
The program of the First Annual Louisiana Peach Festival, which was held on June 27-28, 1951, consisted of "Peaches and Posies" flower show, a peach cookery contest, an art show, several athletic tournaments, and the crowning of the First Queen Dixie Gem and Princess Peach.
South Louisiana humorist, Justin Wilson, master of ceremonies for the pageant, entertained the audience in Howard Auditorium on the Louisiana Tech University campus with his Cajun dialect. In the final moments of the pageant, Louisiana state Sen. Dudly J. LeBlanc, the town of Abbeville’s famous Hadacol salesman, presented the crown and title of Queen Dixie Gem I to Ann Colvin of Bernice, La. Lou Ellen Stevens was named the 1951 Princess Peach. During the ceremony, LeBlanc handed Miss Colvin a gold miniature bottle of Hadacol, his cure-all wonder drug that had gained him national fame and great wealth. 
The first Peach Festival achieved far greater success than any of the sponsors expected. Crowds of people came to attend the events and to take advantage of the special sales held by local merchants. More important, however, the Lincoln Parish peach growers had started their most potent annual publicity event.
The Ruston Daily Leader, in an editorial published after the festival, wrote:
"We believe we can consider the initial effort a success. It was an extremely hard job put over by a small group of men (and women), but they did it and our whole area will rise in importance. This (Ruston) will be the new festival city, the new peach market of the south, and from it we will all benefit."
In the years following 1951, the Louisiana Peach Festival grew in size and popularity. In 1952, its activities doubled in number. In the third year, the festival won national attention when Queen Dixie Gem III, Dorothy Etta Goff, traveled to Washington, D.C. to present then Vice President Richard Nixon a box of peaches. When a late freeze destroyed the entire peach crop in 1955, the festival committee had peaches imported from Texas and Georgia. The theme that year was "The Show Must Go On."
The pride that the local citizens feel is demonstrated throughout the year, but becomes particularly evident during the annual Peach Festival. On June 24, 1982, the Dubach State Bank saluted the Lincoln Parish peach growers with an advertisement which read, in part:
"During the Peach Festival, we want to recognize the peach growers for the quality and success of their products; and, we want to acknowledge them for the job opportunities they offer the students of the area. Working the fields, picking, grading, and preparing peaches for shipment provides these students with the funds to continue their education and obtain their goals.”
The worsening national financial recession of the early 1980s threatened the future of the Louisiana Peach festival. In May 1982, three former festival chairmen reluctantly forecast the collapse of the event, saying if additional funds were not found and certain changes were not made, the festival days were numbered. At one time the state contributed to the Louisiana Peach Festival. But, for several years it had been financed independently, and each year directors of the Association were forced to seek additional sources of money. The Lincoln Parish Jury and many other individuals came to the aid, and the 1982 Festival was held.
The uncertain conditions surrounding the 1982 Festival spurred the Ruston-Lincoln Chamber of Commerce into action. In January 1983, the Chamber voted to accept joint sponsorship of the Louisiana Peach Festival with the Ruston-Lincoln Convention and Visitors Bureau.
But how to fund an increasingly larger and larger festival was still a concern. By the 1990s, the festival included an arts-and-crafts show, a rodeo, and other events spread over a two-week period.
In 2000, the festival’s 50th anniversary, the festival had its first corporate sponsor, Centurytel. Since 2003, Squire Creek Country Club has been the festival’s corporate sponsor.
Prepared by:
Ruston-Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau
2111 Trenton
Ruston, LA 71270
Phone (318) 255-2031
Fax (318) 255-3481
